The revival happening in Lakeland, Florida with Todd Bentley is getting a lot of attention. I think it would be interesting to open a discussion on the topic here. We have a pretty diverse readership here with a wide variety of church histories.

I haven’t attended the meetings in Florida, so I can’t give a complete opinion. However, I have watched a couple of the meetings on TV. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, YouTube is a good place to start. There are a few clips there and more are being added all the time.

Lee Grady, editor at Charisma Magazine, has written a fair and balanced article on the topic. He has spent some time in those meetings and offers some words of caution that I think are accurate.

I’m a native English speaker. I also speak a little bit of Spanglish.

Como se name? Me llamo is Ben. I gusto tacos. Donde esta el bathroom?

I’m also fluent in Christianese. Being a pastor’s kid, this was the first language that I learned. To this day, when I encounter a Christian native, I’m able to communicate with ease regardless of the dialect (Assembly of God, Baptist, Methodist, Pentacostal, charismatic, simple church, house church, etc). It’s the only way to survive on the mean streets of Christendom.

Hello, Brother! This is the day that the Lord has made! There was a disturbance in the heavenlies this morning, but hallelujah I had a check in my spirit and did warfare with my prayer language and tore down that principality. Can I get an Amen on that? I can’t wait to lift up praise as incense in His nostrils this morning at church. We’re really gonna get a download aren’t we! God is good! (echo - “all the time”). All the time (echo - “God is good”)

It’s a good thing we have such a rich Christianese language. Otherwise, the uninitiated heathen population would be able to infiltrate our ranks and undermine our way of life. Imagine the chaos that would fall upon us if an unregenerate soul were to sneak into our secret gatherings and actually understand our covert messages. They would try to steal our ancient truths and propagate them outside of our control. And knowing how such zealots can be, they probably would not even give us credit.

If you are not yet fluent in Christianese, there is hope for you. I’ve put together a few tips to help you:

I’m sorry, but I laughed out loud at this. I fully understand that I may be the only one that did. Clearly that’s not going to stop me.

Not only is it funny, but it illustrates pretty well how two people can think they are communicating when they aren’t at all.

Or… it could have no meaning at all and just be funny. I realize that I’m a pastor so I see sermon illustrations in just about everything. I could get a sermon illustration from a bowl of oatmeal.

office furniture in BulgariaHave a great weekend.

Nice one, Bill. Very nice.

It’s the same story over and over with MS, isn’t it? It’s no wonder so many people are pirating music these days. This kind of thing only inspires your average 20-something to steal more music from his roommates. (Legal note: I’m not promoting pirating music so don’t sue me or condemn me to hell, please)

I think I need to buy a Mac…

I heard Bill Gates is a Miley Cyrus fan, too. You bring the tar. I’ll bring the feathers. We’ll make a day of it. Bring your friends.  ;-)

Technorati Tags: bill gates, music, mp3, drm, microsoft

i haven’t done a “random thoughts” post in a long time. My thoughts are always pretty random, but I can usually wrangle some of them into a cohesive post. Not so today. It’s my day off and while I blissfully ignore the ringing phone and a stacked inbox, I’m going to hit you with the unfiltered madness of my disorganized mind.

• What’s the deal with social networking? Why do I not care? Am I not post-modern enough or something? I don’t do Twitter, and don’t have any desire to add another “social” networking annoyance to my life. I have a MySpace profile and never look at it. I have a Facebook profile, and while I enjoy getting “poked” as much as the next guy, I never poke back. I’m not even sure I understand Facebook. Everything seems so disorganized on the page. It just makes me feel old, so I avoid it. Am I the only one?
• My “Why I’m Mad at Miley Cyrus” post got a lot of heat. I’m thinking I should do a few more like it. Why I’m Mad at Josh Groban. Why I’m Mad at Wayne Newton. Why I’m Mad at The Geico Caveman and the Green Smart Alick Gecko. If you are mad at someone and would like me to rant in your place, let me know.
• I finally finished Tim Keller’s new book The Reason for God. Great book. I think his tone in the book was as instructive as the content. He really succeeded in laying out some uncompromising arguments while at the same time not alienating readers that are not coming from a Christian context. So many apologetics books that I have come across have an adversarial tone. They put unbelievers and doubters on the “other team” and try to out argue them like a lawyer in a court. Dr. Keller’s book avoids this nicely.
• Heather was out of town for two days this week and took the girls with her. That left me with my 1 year old son and no girls. We watched Dirty Jobs, ate pizza on the floor in our sweatpants, wrestled ( I let him win), made silly faces, and made “man noises”. It was awesome.
• My wife saved my hide again this week. Thursday there was a prayer service outside the town hall here. I didn’t have any responsibility in the service and I figured there would be a lot of people there. So, I was about to leave the house in a t-shirt and some old pants. My plan was to go, stand in the back and then leave. Heather stopped me before leaving and asked “Are you going to wear that?” I’m not an idiot. I know how to respond to that question. I said, “No, no, no. Of course not. What do YOU think I should wear. I can’t decide.” She dressed me properly. I show up at the town hall, I end up on stage praying at the last minute. That gets recorded by the local news and broadcast that night. And I matched. Thanks, Heather!